BEWARE OF SHORT BEDS

#1 · January 11, 2010, 11:43 am

Quote from Forum Archives on January 11, 2010, 11:43 am
Posted by: bhfbc <bhfbc@...>
BEWARE OF SHORT BEDS

JANUARY 10, 2010

Text: Isaiah 28:14-20

Arthur H. Kuehn relates an uncomfortable experience he once had: Have you ever slept on a short bed? Have you ever slept with covers too narrow? If you have, you know it was a restless night. I had such an experience one summer while traveling across the country as a college student to work in a national park out west. I had a summer sleeping bag too short and too narrow. One night we slept out in the Tetons. That night the temperature dipped below freezing, and that was the most miserable night Ive ever had. My teeth chattered and my body shook all night long. My companions got close in their bags to get me warm; they ended up shaking with me. Every time I read this passage in Isaiah, I have vivid images of that miserable night in the Tetons. (The Secret Place, July 24, 1988)

Among his many warnings to his people, Isaiah includes the little graphic illustration that the bed is too short to stretch out on, the blanket too narrow to wrap around you. Isaiah told his people Gods people that their faith and trust were grossly misplaced. They chose to mock God and to place their trust in treaties and other religions. By telling them that their bed was too short, Isaiah was saying that their misplaced trust was woefully inadequate.

Like other Old Testament prophets, Isaiah had to declare stern warnings to his people. Israels history was forever being punctuated with periods of time when they turned their backs on God. They were too successful and got arrogant. They forgot that God was the source of their blessings. They began to live as if God worked for them. Sound familiar?

Instead of their lives being a living testimony of the power and goodness of God, His chosen people lived as though God owed His existence to them. They forgot about living humbly and justly and raced after any ill-gotten gain. They incorporated pagan rituals into their worship services. They turned to idols crafted out of wood and stone. They lived lives full of personal and social sin. They trusted themselves. They trusted idols. They trusted treaties. They trusted anything and anyone other than God. Sound familiar?

God was not at all pleased with this disobedience. He raised up devoted men prophets throughout Israels history in order to sound the warning trumpet. God loved His people too much to punish them without warning, even though they deserved it. It was the prophets responsibility to speak Gods words of restoration to His people.

I suppose that we will never completely understand Israels strange fascination with disobedience. They knew the blessings of the Lord. They knew that when they worshiped and obeyed God, they prospered. They also knew that when they placed their faith in idols and other things in place of God, they languished. Yet, for whatever reason, in the midst of prosperity, they often shifted their faith from God to these other things. Take a look at another of the prophets, Hosea, in 4:1-3: Hear the word of the Lord, you Israelites, because the Lord has a charge to bring against you who live in the land: There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land. There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Because of this the land mourns, and all who live in it waste away; the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the fish of the sea are dying.

God loved His people; there is no doubt about that. He not only spoke harsh words of impending punishment, He also spoke words of agony. Isaiah 27:2-5: Sing about a fruitful vineyard: I, the Lord, watch over it; I water it continually, I guard it day and night so that no one may harm it. I am not angry. If only there were briers and thorns confronting me! I would march against them in battle; I would set them all on fire. Or else let them come to me for refuge; let them make peace with me, yes, let them make peace with me. And in 28:16, God declares, See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who trusts will never be dismayed.

Try as He might, the Lord just could not persuade His people to repent. Even when enemies gathered for invasion, God would have heard His peoples cries and dealt with their enemies. But they remained stubborn in their trust of false things. Indeed, their bed was too short and the blanket too narrow.

By rejecting God, the Israelites rejected themselves. That probably did not occur to them, or they chose to ignore it, but they did. They rejected their heritage and their self-worth. They rejected what was decent and replaced it with the repugnant. They rejected a faith that knew no bounds of divine love and replaced it with a tin replication that could not possibly weather the fiercest storms of life. Sound familiar?

In one study on these verses, Dr. G. G. Kilpatrick writes concerning religion and life: Everyone should consider whether his religion is equal to the demands of life. One can meet anywhere the man who, defending his indifference to the church or organized religion, says, To do your duty and play the game is religion enough for me. Duty and decency! Are these two ideals sufficient in themselves to enable one to stand up to life? Is it enough to reduce religion to such a minimum and, so to speak, boil it down to a few ethical principles? Reduction can never be the last word about religion. When we talk of music, we do not ask how much we can get rid of and still be counted music. When we speak of family, we never dream of considering how many of a parents duties we can evade and still be reckoned a father. So is it with religion. It is not a question of how little we can do with, but rather of how much that is true and vital we can make our own. The man who can reduce religion to duty and decency has been too drastic; in the crises of life he will find that bed too short and that covering too narrow. And then Kilpatrick sums it up nicely, There are limits to duty, but there are no frontiers to love. (The Interpreters Bible, vol. 5, pp. 319-320)

This is what God wants from us: our love and our trust. Anything else is too short and too narrow. Yes, duty and decency go along with our faith, but they are driven by love and not the other way around. I perform many duties for the Lord, but if such duties take the place of my loving relationship, then I may be headed the same way as the errant Israelites. Had they continued to love the Lord, they would never have wandered into such debauchery. However, by relying upon duty, they were able to twist it into legalisms and schemes through which they thought that as long as their duties to God were complete, they could do anything else they wanted. Well, that was not the case. Anything short of faith in God is too short and too narrow.

What is the point of all this? Why bother to look into the records of an ancient nation? Because, just as Arthur Kuehn would not have had to spend a night shivering if he had had an adequate sleeping bag, God wants to give us more than short beds and narrow blankets. God wants us to have vibrant, new life. God provides for His people. He provides abundantly. Even invasion by a foreign army was a provision because it was a way of redemption. God knew plainly that, left to their own devices, the Israelites would have destroyed themselves. They put themselves onto a path to destruction. If it were not for Gods intervention, even when it came in the form of a terror, the Israelites would have done themselves in. What God did not do is as important as what He did do: God did not destroy His people. Consider the resolve of God in Hosea 11:8-9: How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused. I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor devastate Ephraim again. For I am God and not man the Holy One among you. I will not come in wrath. God did not come to destroy even though destruction was involved. He came to redeem and re-create.

God is no different today. He wants to give us king-sized beds and king-sized blankets. There is no need to go on shivering in the night in a short, narrow sleeping bag when we can sleep in royal chambers. Unfortunately, though, we are not different than those disobedient Israelites either. No one has to be a murderer or an adulterer or a con artist in order to live outside of Gods will. It happens whenever we place our ultimate trust in anything other than the Lord. It happens when we try to pare down our religion from what can I do to what must I do to get by. It happens whenever we let anything in this life even other good relationships interfere with our relationship with God. These are the tough things to swallow, because they are so prevalent and difficult to overcome. But thank God that He has given us the way to overcome them. He has stretched out our short bed and added to our narrow blankets.

Gods mercies require our response, though. He requires our trust and belief in Him. He requires our love. In the Guidebook for Victorious Christian Living, Dr. Russel Jones notes, Every day we make choices within these relationships that affect them and contribute considerably to our joy or sadness. Our decisions can bring forth emotional strain or emotional release. We can build up these relationships or tear them down. We can, by exercising our power of choice, make our existence on earth one of thrill and adventure or one of drudgery and despair Jesus, in order to drive this point home, issued an invitation to his listeners in Matthew 11:28-30 when he said: Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light. Jesus seems to be saying that, after we have worn ourselves out and broken ourselves down trying to do life our way, we should come to him. He implies that he will not only give us rest but will fit a life to us. This new life will be one we can carry and handle. But this doesnt happen automatically! We must make the decision, by exercising our power of choice, to abandon our efforts to live in our own way and to accept him and his way. (pp. 30-31)

God demands our obedience not because He wants to make life difficult for us, but because He knows what is good for us. Gods love is evident throughout the Bible because God is love. The testimony of Jesus bears proof of that. God wants our devotion because, when He receives it, He can work in our lives so that we can be blessed by Him and, in turn, be a blessing to others. Why toss and turn on a short bed? We never have to be caught short, because God brings us closer to Him whenever we let Him. We can never be totally prepared without trusting in the Lord. The only place of complete trust is in the Lord; the one who trusts will never be dismayed.

Rev. Charles A. Layne

First Baptist Church

PO Box 515

179 W. Broadway

Bunker Hill, IN 46914

765-689-7987

bhfbc@bhfirstbaptist.com

www.bhfirstbaptist.com
-- To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: abesermons-unsubscribe@welovegod.org   

Posted by: bhfbc <bhfbc@...>

JANUARY 10, 2010

Text: Isaiah 28:14-20

Arthur H. Kuehn relates an uncomfortable experience he once had: Have you ever slept on a short bed? Have you ever slept with covers too narrow? If you have, you know it was a restless night. I had such an experience one summer while traveling across the country as a college student to work in a national park out west. I had a summer sleeping bag too short and too narrow. One night we slept out in the Tetons. That night the temperature dipped below freezing, and that was the most miserable night Ive ever had. My teeth chattered and my body shook all night long. My companions got close in their bags to get me warm; they ended up shaking with me. Every time I read this passage in Isaiah, I have vivid images of that miserable night in the Tetons. (The Secret Place, July 24, 1988)

Among his many warnings to his people, Isaiah includes the little graphic illustration that the bed is too short to stretch out on, the blanket too narrow to wrap around you. Isaiah told his people Gods people that their faith and trust were grossly misplaced. They chose to mock God and to place their trust in treaties and other religions. By telling them that their bed was too short, Isaiah was saying that their misplaced trust was woefully inadequate.

Like other Old Testament prophets, Isaiah had to declare stern warnings to his people. Israels history was forever being punctuated with periods of time when they turned their backs on God. They were too successful and got arrogant. They forgot that God was the source of their blessings. They began to live as if God worked for them. Sound familiar?

Instead of their lives being a living testimony of the power and goodness of God, His chosen people lived as though God owed His existence to them. They forgot about living humbly and justly and raced after any ill-gotten gain. They incorporated pagan rituals into their worship services. They turned to idols crafted out of wood and stone. They lived lives full of personal and social sin. They trusted themselves. They trusted idols. They trusted treaties. They trusted anything and anyone other than God. Sound familiar?

God was not at all pleased with this disobedience. He raised up devoted men prophets throughout Israels history in order to sound the warning trumpet. God loved His people too much to punish them without warning, even though they deserved it. It was the prophets responsibility to speak Gods words of restoration to His people.

I suppose that we will never completely understand Israels strange fascination with disobedience. They knew the blessings of the Lord. They knew that when they worshiped and obeyed God, they prospered. They also knew that when they placed their faith in idols and other things in place of God, they languished. Yet, for whatever reason, in the midst of prosperity, they often shifted their faith from God to these other things. Take a look at another of the prophets, Hosea, in 4:1-3: Hear the word of the Lord, you Israelites, because the Lord has a charge to bring against you who live in the land: There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land. There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Because of this the land mourns, and all who live in it waste away; the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the fish of the sea are dying.

God loved His people; there is no doubt about that. He not only spoke harsh words of impending punishment, He also spoke words of agony. Isaiah 27:2-5: Sing about a fruitful vineyard: I, the Lord, watch over it; I water it continually, I guard it day and night so that no one may harm it. I am not angry. If only there were briers and thorns confronting me! I would march against them in battle; I would set them all on fire. Or else let them come to me for refuge; let them make peace with me, yes, let them make peace with me. And in 28:16, God declares, See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who trusts will never be dismayed.

Try as He might, the Lord just could not persuade His people to repent. Even when enemies gathered for invasion, God would have heard His peoples cries and dealt with their enemies. But they remained stubborn in their trust of false things. Indeed, their bed was too short and the blanket too narrow.

By rejecting God, the Israelites rejected themselves. That probably did not occur to them, or they chose to ignore it, but they did. They rejected their heritage and their self-worth. They rejected what was decent and replaced it with the repugnant. They rejected a faith that knew no bounds of divine love and replaced it with a tin replication that could not possibly weather the fiercest storms of life. Sound familiar?

In one study on these verses, Dr. G. G. Kilpatrick writes concerning religion and life: Everyone should consider whether his religion is equal to the demands of life. One can meet anywhere the man who, defending his indifference to the church or organized religion, says, To do your duty and play the game is religion enough for me. Duty and decency! Are these two ideals sufficient in themselves to enable one to stand up to life? Is it enough to reduce religion to such a minimum and, so to speak, boil it down to a few ethical principles? Reduction can never be the last word about religion. When we talk of music, we do not ask how much we can get rid of and still be counted music. When we speak of family, we never dream of considering how many of a parents duties we can evade and still be reckoned a father. So is it with religion. It is not a question of how little we can do with, but rather of how much that is true and vital we can make our own. The man who can reduce religion to duty and decency has been too drastic; in the crises of life he will find that bed too short and that covering too narrow. And then Kilpatrick sums it up nicely, There are limits to duty, but there are no frontiers to love. (The Interpreters Bible, vol. 5, pp. 319-320)

This is what God wants from us: our love and our trust. Anything else is too short and too narrow. Yes, duty and decency go along with our faith, but they are driven by love and not the other way around. I perform many duties for the Lord, but if such duties take the place of my loving relationship, then I may be headed the same way as the errant Israelites. Had they continued to love the Lord, they would never have wandered into such debauchery. However, by relying upon duty, they were able to twist it into legalisms and schemes through which they thought that as long as their duties to God were complete, they could do anything else they wanted. Well, that was not the case. Anything short of faith in God is too short and too narrow.

What is the point of all this? Why bother to look into the records of an ancient nation? Because, just as Arthur Kuehn would not have had to spend a night shivering if he had had an adequate sleeping bag, God wants to give us more than short beds and narrow blankets. God wants us to have vibrant, new life. God provides for His people. He provides abundantly. Even invasion by a foreign army was a provision because it was a way of redemption. God knew plainly that, left to their own devices, the Israelites would have destroyed themselves. They put themselves onto a path to destruction. If it were not for Gods intervention, even when it came in the form of a terror, the Israelites would have done themselves in. What God did not do is as important as what He did do: God did not destroy His people. Consider the resolve of God in Hosea 11:8-9: How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused. I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor devastate Ephraim again. For I am God and not man the Holy One among you. I will not come in wrath. God did not come to destroy even though destruction was involved. He came to redeem and re-create.

God is no different today. He wants to give us king-sized beds and king-sized blankets. There is no need to go on shivering in the night in a short, narrow sleeping bag when we can sleep in royal chambers. Unfortunately, though, we are not different than those disobedient Israelites either. No one has to be a murderer or an adulterer or a con artist in order to live outside of Gods will. It happens whenever we place our ultimate trust in anything other than the Lord. It happens when we try to pare down our religion from what can I do to what must I do to get by. It happens whenever we let anything in this life even other good relationships interfere with our relationship with God. These are the tough things to swallow, because they are so prevalent and difficult to overcome. But thank God that He has given us the way to overcome them. He has stretched out our short bed and added to our narrow blankets.

Gods mercies require our response, though. He requires our trust and belief in Him. He requires our love. In the Guidebook for Victorious Christian Living, Dr. Russel Jones notes, Every day we make choices within these relationships that affect them and contribute considerably to our joy or sadness. Our decisions can bring forth emotional strain or emotional release. We can build up these relationships or tear them down. We can, by exercising our power of choice, make our existence on earth one of thrill and adventure or one of drudgery and despair Jesus, in order to drive this point home, issued an invitation to his listeners in Matthew 11:28-30 when he said: Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light. Jesus seems to be saying that, after we have worn ourselves out and broken ourselves down trying to do life our way, we should come to him. He implies that he will not only give us rest but will fit a life to us. This new life will be one we can carry and handle. But this doesnt happen automatically! We must make the decision, by exercising our power of choice, to abandon our efforts to live in our own way and to accept him and his way. (pp. 30-31)

God demands our obedience not because He wants to make life difficult for us, but because He knows what is good for us. Gods love is evident throughout the Bible because God is love. The testimony of Jesus bears proof of that. God wants our devotion because, when He receives it, He can work in our lives so that we can be blessed by Him and, in turn, be a blessing to others. Why toss and turn on a short bed? We never have to be caught short, because God brings us closer to Him whenever we let Him. We can never be totally prepared without trusting in the Lord. The only place of complete trust is in the Lord; the one who trusts will never be dismayed.

Rev. Charles A. Layne

First Baptist Church

PO Box 515

179 W. Broadway

Bunker Hill, IN 46914

765-689-7987

bhfbc@bhfirstbaptist.com

http://www.bhfirstbaptist.com

-- To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: abesermons-unsubscribe@welovegod.org